Evidently
he was holding something back, as Kessler could look at him directly
without wincing. Even then, he was a painful sight.
He was still humanoid, but only just—the only indication of a face
on his face was a pair of glowing blue orbs that could have been
eyes. All the rest of him was just a tangle of ruddy red thorns,
which occasionally shifted with low groaning sounds over each other.
From the top of his head was a literal crown of thorns which nearly
made it seem like he had hair.
Kessler
had to accept that this was the creature that had probably dreamed
his life into existence. He had accepted far worse things already,
and Moloch was maligned anyway by the efforts of his brother El, who
was the borderline-evil God of the Old Testament. Marvel, or
Agthrunsthaaa, was even worse than that. Agthrunsthaaa had, with a
similar casualness, stated that he intended to take Kessler's body
for his own.
“So
this is the form I'll take, once the transfer is complete,”
Agthrunsthaaa said, keeping his voice sounding at least a little
human. “Mr. Kessler, it does pain me to have to restore to body
theft. That was the tool my Enemy used, after all.”
Kessler
spoke up: “Your Enemy?”
“Yes...though
in some sense, he's everyone's Enemy. He's the man who took both my
spouse and my life away from me. His name is Edward Tamaron—I doubt
that will mean anything to
you. For many centuries now, I've labored only to get
revenge on him, and you two are just pieces in part of that. I was a
beautiful bird once, let's say, and one day I intend to regain my
feathers. Once that's done, I will never harm anyone again...”10
“I've
heard that talk before,” Moloch said. “If you need to take over a
new body, that means it will be easy to dispatch you. Body-vampires
are weak things.”
“I
thought that once,” replied Agthrunsthaaa. “But like the body-thief
I knew, I know great magic. And unlike him, I have power from
both Sides of the Multiverse.”
And he
began to whisper a curse that Moloch knew; though he knew both Sides
as well, being originally from the A-Side before his self-imposed
exile, he recognized it as being the Incantation of Synkaiju—a
verse from the Nommo of Beezing-land, a B-Side Kingdom of the Second
Renaissance. He even managed to seal the spell with the Nameless
Tone, and with a flash of gloomy blue light, he began to change. His
skin darkened, becoming solid black,
darker than the darkest humans. His eyes grew green-hot as their
pupils thinned to lines, and his nails became claws, his teeth fangs,
his hair horns. For a moment, Moloch was once more Dr. Melcher, and
Karl Kessler was Colomb, both squaring off against a suddenly very
real Black Dragon. No more was he a propagandized Japanese crime lord
stapled clumsily onto the back of a collection of horror scenes; he
was a European serpent in humanoid shape, a were-wyrm.11
Without
a moment of hesitation, he let out a loud shriek and sprinted towards
Moloch. The two grappled like wrestlers, or more properly like
classical statues. Their poses were heroic, exaggerated. To Kessler
it seemed natural, as both of them in their own way were gods. Here,
it seemed like space and circumstance deformed around them.
“Here”
was the Lost Stream, the boundary zone between two mutual exclusives.
Here everything and nothing happened, in every universe,
forever—beyond any score, record, or canon. To the Multiverse at
large this struggle was a non-event, an anti-happening; it could have
no consequences. But Agthrunsthaaa seemed so sure that usurping the
power of a god would let him transcend the continuity of the Multiverse. It was likely
he'd already tapped some of its power, to be able to transform his
body like Proteus. Kessler was no academe as it was, but from what he
knew about that idea from what his teachers had babbled to him he
felt like there were some mighty implications in the general ability
to “transcend canon.” Or maybe not. After all, again, everything
that happened here was negated.
As soon
as Kessler realized that, Moloch knew it too. They were the same
dreamer, in the end. If Moloch had a mouth he would have grinned. He
spread his arms, opening himself up, and look a long step forward.
Agthrunsthaaa thrust his arm out and the sharp claws made his arm
into a spear—Moloch's body fractured like the bundle of twigs it
was, with blue light leaking out from the back.
Kessler
thought he remembered Moloch mentioning being mortal—a higher
being, but still one who could be killed. That should have
killed him. But technically, in its own way, it never happened. From
Moloch's wrist came a wooden construct, a long spear. With a single
smooth gesture he impaled his scaly enemy through the heart.
Agthrunsthaaa
snarled with pain, and for a moment faintly hissed the word “No.”
It seemed like he accepted his fate, to come this far to be
outmaneuvered in canon. But he wasn't outdone in canon—he was
beaten in non-canon. “Two can play that game, Moloch,” he
said quietly.
The
spear vanished. It had never existed. Gods, it seemed, could still
exert a little power here—they could make waves in whatever waters
the Stream was made of. Local events, at least, they could remove
from existence. Which meant they could also bring events that never
happened into existence.
And so
it made sense that Moloch was against the wall—pinned, in fact, by
green force—and had always been like that. That was how the “fight”
had opened, for the fight as Kessler had seen it was now non-canon.
That left Kessler helpless as Agthrunsthaaa strode across the room
that was only sometimes there, bouncing back and forth between the
dragon and the man. He grinned at first but consistently, the grin
faded as he walked. It was true what he'd said earlier: he regretted
what he was about to do. To take control of one's mind was an
agonizing process, but maybe it would spare him a little if he gave
him hope.
“Maybe
I'll find a way for you to keep living, even if I take your body,”
he whispered. “After all, I'm only here because the Angels found a
way to bring me back from the dead when my body was stolen. I
hope there's a way. Maybe you can even still live in the body, even
if I'll have to be the one controlling it.”
Kessler
had no reply, but somehow the whisper reached Moloch. “Do you think
that altering the canon of the worlds outside the Stream will fix
anything?” the Canaanite asked. “Do you think you can just erase
Tamaron and undo everything whatever it is he did, with no
consequences? Erasing even a historically minor person could unfold
the fabric of the Multiverse.”
“Then
let it be unfolded. When it's done, I'll fix up whatever is left.”
“That
was what my brother El said, before he made millions of families
drown screaming under the rains.”
“It
doesn't sound, however, like El had a family to return to once he
completed his acts of vengeance. He didn't have happiness to find again.”
And then
Marvel grinned again. For once, it wasn't a hateful, mocking grin—it
was a look of some distant contentment, as if he was recalling a
memory he hadn't felt in a long time. The mocking came later, only a
hair of a moment before he lunged for Kessler.
The Lost
Stream faded from him, and in his place was a dark room. He'd stood
in this room before. When he had been in Moloch's apartment, when
Moloch had only been Dr. Melcher, with no intimations of the being
within, Kessler had allowed himself some sleep. But he slept within
his own Dreamland and that meant that Agthrunsthaaa had made this
room for him. It was their private space to spend time together. He
was already waiting.
In fact,
the long strings of fibrous cords that made up the shrieking mass
before him were already looped around his throat. These were who they
were in their minds; Kessler still resembled himself, having done
little to change the course of his soul, but Agthrunsthaaa, truly,
was a flayed and mutilated thing. If Kessler wasn't already insane, he
was now. The essence that was crawling into his flesh, like spiders
eating into muscle, was a howling tumor of blood and arms. The
screams it made were primitive, like an animal, and adolescent, like
a human baby...something hard snapped within Kessler. It did so
suddenly, and he let out a small gasp when it happened—he felt
cold, as Moloch had when he felt Agthrunsthaaa usurp him in the
timeline in their long journey here. He began to slip away from this
world, but not before there was one last flash. One last glimpse of
her. And he cringed away, because he realized he did not know
her.12
But
Moloch didn't give up. Arrogance was his weapon here—as his soul
left his body, Agthrunsthaaa was immobile. His tiny green hands which
held Moloch's thorny bulk to the castle wall vanished, and he dove
forward. There was only one thing left to do. It was the final
defense against possession, universal across all the mythologies he
lived through: sacrifice. Moloch had known sacrifice. And he was dead
already.
It was
nearly over. The flesh of the bloody cancer was like a thick, warm
pudding, pulling most of Karl's body inside. He kept screaming even
though it did him no good. The voice in his ear and mind was louder
than any scream he could let out.
“Don't
fight. Don't fight. I am Karl Colomb Kessler, I am,
it's me. I am you. I AM you. You are me,
you are nothing without me. You are me! Damn you, you
are ME!”
“No.”
It was Karl's voice, but Karl couldn't speak. It broke both sets of
screams.
“You
are me.” Stiff hands jerked the shredded figure back,
pulling it off of Karl. “And I am nothing but the seed of Tzaa, a
god of plants, destined to become a tree. Inert, frozen, and
unthinking. In blissful suspension, forever.”
Karl's
mind was still melting, from where he'd been broken. It was like his
psychic self had been wounded, and he was leaking some sort of astral
blood. The wound would close in time; but he would be lost. To
replace the lost blood, his spiritual body would absorb the matter of
the Dreamlands, and this body slowly would become little more than a
dream itself. He fought against this. This had all been for Virginia,
and even though he couldn't remember who exactly she was or why he
loved her, he needed to live, if nothing else than for her.
But
also, for someone else. His head cleared a little, and he saw what
was happening. “Moloch, no, please,” he begged. “Th-this will kill you...”
“Yes,”
Moloch said. Agthrunsthaaa whined like a coyote against his grip.
“Agthrunsthaaa may even survive the process—but destroying my
consciousness will release sufficient force to seal him in my body,
and throw that body into a random location in time and space,
somewhere and somewhen in the Multiverse. He'll be trapped in the
tree and unable to move, like the wizards Merlin and Sincodemius.”
“I
know that I'm far from the first person to say this, and I know that
every time it's said it comes across as pathetic,” Kessler said,
“but I'm not worth it. My life is meaningless. If you let him take
me, you can use your power to kill him—!”
“No,
Karl, you need to understand that your life is worth it.”
“I'm
going to die too. I can't explain it, but my mind is
bleeding...”
“You
will become something strange in the Lost Stream, it's true. Its
waters are entering you, perhaps making you into something to balance
out my loss...”
Karl
started to guess at what that could mean, but his thoughts couldn't
catch up.
“Even
if there is some continuum out there where I am worth it, and
I'm not just a lunatic, I can't let someone like you die. I feel
that you were once part of a great story, an important story.
“All
stories must end, Karl. But I will try to make yours end happily.”
He paused. “In any case, I can't let him take you. He would have my
power and his own. And if he becomes me, time will be satisfied...if
it can get satisfaction, that is. Agh will be the ThrΓΌn
of Tzaa, just as your book said. And I will still exist. He didn't
supplant me in time, even if we are the same...”
Karl
accepted it—he accepted all of it. He accepted Moloch and in doing
so accepted himself.
“Goodbye,
Melcher. Thank you for not being a Nazi.”
“Thank
you for not being a strangle-murderer.”
They
laughed. And the blue eyes of Moloch vanished.
The
soul of a god broke, and with a pulse of invisible force, Karl,
Agthrunsthaaa, and the inert tree that was once Moloch were pulled
from the Lost Stream back into canon-space. Karl felt no pity when he
realized that Agthrunsthaaa hadn't even gotten a chance to scream.
Down
he went, spiraling back to the material realms, crossing through
Dreamlands and never-weres like they were clouds. As he felt the
essence of Melcher and Brenner and all the rest fade away, Karl lost
track of where he was headed. He wondered for a moment if he would
ever know. Mentally he was ages away from anything of his old life,
from before this very long quest. He would
become strange, he
knew, as Moloch said. He reviewed the last of what he was, before it
changed forever. For a long time, he had made Virginia synonymous
with his soul, and so for what was the first time, he looked into
her, rather than merely at her.
And he
was filled with horror upon realizing that he had taken away her
soul. Ideas were beautiful but they came from people. People
were always more important than concepts, abstractions, or
anything else. Even if Virginia had never existed anywhere on the
face of the Multiverse, on either Side of it, it wasn't right for him
to deprive her of identity, of agency and self, even in theory if not
in practice. He wanted her to be free. Her smile should be hers—her
love should be hers. He had been wrong this whole time...
But she
did give him one last smile. He couldn't read what it meant, but it
left him with a final feeling of peace. Like the rest a wick gets
when the candlelight is snuffed out. He began to slip away, this time
permanently...maybe he'd return, now and again. He wanted to tell his
story...that was his last worldly desire, and it carried no weight
for him. There was no weight at all, and as she stepped into the
world to live a life of her own as she deserved he was spreading his
wings.13
---
10.
In Oaxacan mythology, bats once begged the birds to share some of
their feathers, so that they could keep their unprotected bodies
warm. With divine blessing the birds shared feathers and for a time
bats were more beautiful than birds; master of rainbows, bringing
them to both the day and night. But in this they became conceited,
and demanded dominions over the skies. The birds worked with divinity
to strip the bats of their feathers, and in their shame and ugliness
they decided to hide themselves in the warm, dark caves.
I
assure you, in what I did, I did only for the same reasons as Marvel,
with his mysterious Mr. Tamaron—I wanted revenge. Days have gone by
haven't bathed. And in that, I've understood that that desire for
revenge will never leave me. I miss my wife, I
Did
I tell you what happened to her? She had a much better fate. I
drugged her. It was a humane thing; she did not suffer as the
chemicals erased her memory and turned her genius into drunken
idiocy. I know exactly where she ended up, for I saw her in
afternoons when I was done with Mr. Kessler. His Virginia, my
Virginia, Vivian Gina. I spent those afternoons with her, even though
both I and whatever's left of her know that she will never, ever
recover.
But
before I did that to her, I did something even worse. I killed
Oliver, and that was not enough. I stared into her eyes as I did it,
as I cut his throat.
I
lay this out to you scientifically—as merely a natural fact. You
must have imagined my doing it anyway.
And
as much as she condemned me in the moment, the burden I've laid upon
myself surely has to be far worse. I hope it is.
11.
The appearance of draconic foes at the conclusion of a conflict-laden
dream-cycle is not uncommon. The idea of a serpent as an adversary is
a popular concept in many Western nations, due to the Serpent of
Biblical lore, and its connotation with the Devil. I already know, of
course, that the Devil is not a Serpent, not unless Serpents can grow
fur and wings. The “prefix” were- of course suggests werewolves,
relating back to the Jekyll-Hyde duality of Dexter/Brewster and their
ape-form. Thinking of such a thing reminds me: when I was consulting
Zabor's notes after his rampage, I came across the thing which
finally explained it all to me. Vivian had been on his
hit-list, because Zabor hated infidelity—perhaps the loathed Van
Housen had seduced Mrs. Zabor, or one of his parents had had an affair and
it had disillusioned him while young. In any case he was my friend,
or thought himself to be, and when he learned about the affair from
one or both of them being clumsy he blamed Vivian and knew his
gorilla would have to take revenge on her. Alas, Zabor, would that
you
It
has been more days since Footnote 10 (or indeed since I left hanging
the last of that paragraph). I consider these footnotes now to be a
countdown, but to what I can't imagine. I do not care I have begun
raiding Viv's old collections of liquor. I will drink toasts to her
till my mind and soul and notes are in oblivion. But I should be
careful! For my old professors once told me that sometimes the
spirits in a bottle can turn out to be genies...
12.
my darling my dear I did not know you I did not try to know you for I
can know no one but myself and my world is filled with no one but
myself repeated endlessly like the different shapes we take in dreams
like the splinters of the vast caverns of our spirits and I have
dreamed myself in both roles of the hospital as both doctor and
patient victor and victim and all outside and in between
the
countdown is nearly finished and my question to you my dear Oliver is
if when I killed you I made you into a sacrifice
13.
I hear the rustle of a different set of wings. The wings of birds and
Angels and Faeries and all that are much different from those of
Bats.
You've
already known that I've gone too far—now I've stepped past
midnight. Thirteen notes; a bad omen. But it is time to end this.
Now,
at the end, all the layers mesh, or seem to. I have made my own
acceptance, and I know that it was on an altar to a god that Oliver
Dran's blood was spilled. I knew it because I wanted it. Deep down,
what we want is not love, or justice, or even revenge. We want
punishment. Some believe suffering is worth it. Do I...?
Someone
does. Some version of me does.
But
I'm more confusing than I thought I was. That's why it's coming for
me. That's why I can see the bark, in my mind, many centuries and
stories later, finally yielding to the spirit within. Finally setting
it free from its warm cave.
They
tried, those dreamers, to seal him or us up in that tree. They did it
with a dream; a dream that they could win. But no dream can last
forever.
The
thirteenth hour chimes, and time-lost Agthrunsthaaa becomes me at
last.
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